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Open Hand - You and Me

Rating

RIYL

Quicksand
Codeseven
CKY
Rival Schools

Label

Trustkill

Tracklist

1. Pure Concentrated Evil
2. Her Song
3. Tough Girl
4. You ANd Me
5. Tough Guy
6. Jaded
7. The Ambush
8. Tke No Action
9. Newspeak
10. Crooked Crown
11. The Kaleidoscope
12. Waiting For Katy
13. Trench Warfare
14. Hard Night

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Recent Ratings
Rick Gebhardt

Lord knows how long it has been since Trustkill even attempted to release anything decent, let alone actually accomplish such a feat. Between a hail of stickers and the continued exploitation of the worst metalcore has to offer, Trustkill has churned out flop after flop of emotionally crippled horseshit. It’s a wonder they even still exist. I remember a time when it seemed Open Hand was the counter to Victory’s Taking Back Sunday. After an independently released EP, Trustkill released The Dream at a time when “emotionally driven rock” still had a shred of whatever it is that keeps a fad from becoming completely annoying. For what it was, a rehash and some well done but unremarkable cuts, The Dream was O.K, but certainly nothing to give rise over. It was simply a shiny nag in Trustkills’ stable of jackasses. Two years later, and sufficiently moved on from that weird period of e-teamers and red stars, Open Hand has quietly pushed out You and Me, and confidently smote the notion that Trustkill would never again see the light of day.

The Hand may as well be a different band, because any connection between You and Me and The Dream is by name alone. Gone is the goofy search for a way out of the “dark” (musically anyway), replaced by a thicker, more polished, and seemingly more genuine stab at being memorable. Knowing almost nothing about the band outside of what they have released, I can’t help but feel like that this is an album where they gave up to their influences, likely mid-90’s post-grunge-blah-blah-blah stonrerites Quicksand, Kyuss, and Queens of the Stone Age, and forged a record that became a production of ease rather than a force of sound. You and Me is a harkening to roots, maybe even a tiny attempt to be at the spearhead of a resurgence, but it is engrossing enough to exist by itself, and an accomplishment musically even if it isn’t popular financially.

The oddity of this is that You and Me as a whole is pretty inconsistent. It opens furiously with “Pure Concentrated Evil,” some nonsense about politics and evil pricks and you-know-the-rest, then immediately slows to a drool on “Her Song,” a thudding melancholy backed by bongos and what turns into sole constant on the album, a thin guitar tone. And then of course there’s the wall-of-sound moments like the title track or “Jaded,” where the vocals billow over drum pistons and wah wah wankery until they all collapse into a silent, pointless heap. It’s the inconsistency that ultimately works in their favor though, because Open Hand never lets you get too bored with any one dynamic. A rollercoaster might be too extreme a comparison, but there is enough rising and falling to keep it fresh. Yet a word of warning to those that bother trying to listen to the comical screeching of “Tough Girl” and “Take No Action,” a vocal hilarity equivalent to that song where Madonna raps. Still, it doesn’t ruin what You and Me has to offer.

Be merry Trustkill, for today you have done well in the eyes of The Lord, and he shall entreat you to virgins and fresh cattle, but he knows you shall fall to wickedness tomorrow, because he has been sent enough stupid ass e-cards to know that this is rare.

--M. Foster